To reduce the strain on natural resources, consumption will have to be more service-focused. This will be a challenge for goods-producing companies. The Nutrient Calculator concept has been produced to investigate how companies can develop service solutions linked to white goods and physical products, and take greater responsibility as manufacturers. Electrolux looked into the problem that one in every four bags of purchased groceries is discarded: how can food waste be reduced in our kitchens? The solution was taken from the space sector with nutritional data for astronauts; information about individual nutrient needs are transferred to a mobile application that interfaces with the domestic or restaurant kitchen or supermarket, thus optimising both nutrition and waste – exactly like in a space station.

The Green Collaboration Space concept supports local medium-sized enterprises investing in green technologies directed at export markets. The support provided is an extension of an educational system and a demo environment. Both social and technical innovations have been transferred from the space industry: ideas from a future base on Mars for creating resource-lean, compact towns and building ecocyclic societies in which everything is recycled or recovered. This is the same approach as when NASA and the ESA tackle complex problems: collaboration across sectors and disciplines with an “everything is possible” mindset.

The TRAINing concept has been developed to deal with the future challenges facing schools. What is a school and what is the smallest unit that constitutes a school? New learning environments are needed and one way to achieve this could be to envisage a train and a train journey as a learning environment. Students learn along the way, and all necessary technology is integrated into their carriage, which is fitted in keeping with the notion of volume management so that they can live and work in a confined space, like in the space station. The students can also report home to a fixed point through a link-up to a “mission control centre”.